Two Poems
Stan Sanvel Rubin


 
Define “Voice.” Define “Flower.”
 
In Pyongyang missiles roll
down the boulevard of trucks
like a toxic stream
 
while crowds cheer
with bright colors that signify
the people’s happiness
 
at death, the exclusion
of self from the living animal
a crowd makes waving colors
 
that wave the people like a flag.
Here in the Land of the Free,
a white and pink corsage
 
lays half soaked in a gutter
where the limousine
picked her up,
 
the girl whose heart was broken
when she was dropped,
alone, at the same curb,
 
watching the stream of dirty water
slowly spin the bent
flower like a spider.
 

 

About Rain
 
Nothing settles things like rain.
Back into earth, softening earth.
 
What rises is not for domestic use.
What rises into clouds is flight.
 
A healthy body is 70% water.
Tears, piss, sweat.
 
Blood is half water.
Love drinks from it like a river.
 
If you don’t understand this,
try again.










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About the Author: Stan Sanvel Rubin’s poems have appeared in many magazines, most recently in One, Poetry Northwest, The Laurel Review, American Journal of Poetry, Watershed Review, and Hubbub. His fourth full collection, There. Here. was published by Lost Horse Press in 2013. He lives on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State.

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